Piliavin

• Piliavin was inspired by the murder of Kitty Genovese who was attacked in New York in the '60s and could be heard by her neighbours but no one helped
• The bystander effect is when the presence of other people reduces the chance that someone will help a person in need. It has 2 explanations:

  1. Pluralistic ignorance - when a situation is ambiguous so other people not acting shows that any individual does not need to help.
  2. Diffusion of responsibility - when the people present believe it should be someone else's responsibility to help the person in need.
• Latane and Darley found that bystanders hearing a fit over earphones did not report it as they believed the others present would help instead.
• Piliavin wanted to build on Latane and Darley by developing a field experiment to test the bystander effect in a more realistic environment, a train.
• Piliavin aimed to investigate how the nature of a situation influences the rate of helping behaviour on a NY subway train.
• Piliavin looked at 4,500 men and women on the New York subway during 11am - 3pm over a 3 month period.
• There were 4 independent variables of Piliavin's study:

  1. Type of victim (drunk or ill),
  2. Race of victim (black or white),
  3. Effect of model (step in after 70 or 150 seconds),
  4. Size of witnessing group.
• There were 6 dependent variables of Piliavin's study:

  1. Frequency of help,
  2. Speed of help,
  3. Race of helper,
  4. Sex of helper,
  5. Movement out of critical area,
  6. Verbal comments by bystanders.
• Procedure:

  • Piliavin standardised the behaviour of the confederates (male: model and victim, female: 2 observers),
  • Confederates would enter the train. Females would sit in either adjacent or critical area, victim would stumble and fall to the ground and stay there until someone helped,
  • Model would intervene (after 70 or 150 seconds) if no one else had,
  • The ill victim had a cane and the drunk victim had a bottle in a brown paper bag,
  • They would then get off the train.
• Findings:

  • Overall; ill victim was helped 100% of the time but drunk victim that was only 81% of the time,
  • Before the model; ill victim was helped 95% of the time, drunk victim was helped 50% of time,
  • There was more same race help,
  • More males helped than females,
  • Females were recorded saying that it was a man's job to help.
• Piliavin suggested that when there is no escape to a social situation and the victim is in front of you, the diffusion of responsibility is less likely, regardless of how many people are around.

  More people are likely to help an ill person than a drunk person as being drunk is self induced so those people are seen as less deserving of help.